March in my opinion is the most exciting month of the year. Not just because spring is starting and the weather is warming up, but because of March Madness. According to Statistica.com, about 10 million people watched at some point in the tournament last year making the NCAA tournament one of the most watched sports events on TV every year.
The NCAA tournament first began in 1939 and was the idea of Ohio State men’s basketball head coach Harold Olsen. The victor was the Oregon Ducks of Oregon University. Out of the 85 years of its existence, the tournament has changed substantially. In its early years, there was an eight-team field, each team being selected with dues to their record and their geographical location. This occurred to ensure a fair playing field for all schools. The Ducks beat the Ohio State Buckeyes with a staggering score of 46-33. The field grew to sixteen teams in 1951, doubled to thirty-two in 1975, and, expanded to its current size of 64 teams in 1985, according to NCAA.com. In total, thirty-six different teams have won the whole tourney based on an article by NCAA.com. No other team in the country has won the championship more times than UCLA at eleven. Seven of those eleven chips all came in sequential years, 1967-1973. The two schools behind UCLA are Kentucky (8) and North Carolina (6). The coach with the total number of March Madness Tournament overall victories is Coach Mike Krzyzewski with 94. Coach K spent a total of forty-two seasons with the University of Duke and earned 1,129 wins, which is more than any other coach in NCAA basketball history.
This year the most dominant teams have been the #1 ranked University of Houston Cougars (23-3), the #2 ranked University of Connecticut (26-3), and the #3 ranked Purdue University(28-3). In the past few years, these teams have been the most successful in terms of regular season and tournament time combined. Both UCONN and Houston have had much more success in the tourney than Purdue, who has lost in the first round the past three years. The Boilermakers have all of the pieces to have a successful team and make a run, but for some reason, they have just choked when it was most important. This year, hopefully, the transfer of Lance Jones can help the pressure not get to Purdue. The Cougars have lost in the Final Four, Elite Eight, and Sweet Sixteen the past three seasons. They have been to the Natty twice but have never come out on top. Finally, for UCONN, the Huskies have also had very successful seasons recently as well as being the reigning NCAA Tournament champions last season.
In closing, the month of March is rich in history that many people do not know anything about. For most sports fans this nears the peak of all things happening in the world and speaking from experience, can have you hanging on the edge of your seat not knowing what could happen next.
